How To: Play Drinking Games

Drinking games are not just for the crazy college student; they liven up any otherwise drab party, allow you to get to know new buddies in a relaxed environment and make it easier to meet that cutie who's been giving you the eye all evening.

A good drinking game is easy to understand and requires only simple skills, so anyone who wishes to join can and should do so — the last thing you want to do is discriminate.

The hard part is that there are so many drinking games that it's hard to figure out which one to choose. Some people like to play with cards, others dice and still others may have their own variants of games to recommend.

To help you sift through these hangover-inducing games, we've provided a breakdown of the nine best — some traditional, some more original.

They're split up into two categories:

Easy-to-play games require minimal equipment so you can play on the fly.Set-up required games are for those parties you plan in advance and during which you fully intend to get sauced.

Whichever game you choose, we guarantee hours of fun or a lot of time making love to the toilet... whatever comes first.

Easy-to-play

Go Fish

Yes, even the innocent kids' card game can get twisted into a loud, drunken battle. In this game, all you need is a deck of cards and a crew of alcohol-loving friends. The game unfolds as usual — that is, you deal out seven cards per player and each player tries to match their cards by asking opponents if they have a card of the same value (i.e. a player with one seven in his/her hand would ask for a seven) — but it comes with several twists.

First, every time you ask another player for a card and they say "go fish," you must take a swig of your drink. Since this game can go on for a long time, we suggest a medium-sized sip of beer (there's four sips to a regular bottle of beer).

Second, if you "fish your wish" (if you go fish and pick the card you were originally asking for), you must make the player who made you go fish take two swigs of their drink.

Lastly, if you ask a player for a card and that player has it in their hand, then they must drink the number of sips represented by the face value of that card.

Bonus: If you don't have a significant buzz at the end of the game, try this: At the game's conclusion, all the losers must drink the amount of sips represented by the number of pairs the winning player made.